LIGHTFOOT: THE LEGEND LIVES ON IN SONG … WITH LASTING — IF DIMINISHED VOICE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
RAMA — When you’re 83 seniors moments happen. A word slips your mind, you have to take a step back to catch your breath.
But it’s all good for Gordon Lightfoot, who can still remember and deliver memorable lyrics from his decades old hits.
And while his concerts now are more about seeing and being in the presence of the Canadian folk legend, and experiencing his song-writing — and less about his diminished singing — when his still beautiful crackling voice shares memorable storylines like “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down. Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee …” it’s still spine-tingling.
Like he’d never lost his voice or his ability connect with an audience.
“He’s still got it,” says an admiring fan halfway back in the hall here Saturday night. “He sounds and looks better than I thought.”
“Welome back! … We love you, Gord,” shout others further back in the bleachers.
To many of his worshippers each night’s show feels like a last chance to hear the genius singer/songwriter and purveyor of some of the finest folk songs written and performed.
For Lightfoot last night had that folksy Mariposa hometown feeling. A willowy storyteller with a guitar pick and his grandkid gathered at his boots.
“I remember delivering linen to Camp Couchiching, when I was 16, and fishing with my dad, Gordon Sr., at the east end of the lake.”
As ease with himself as with his audience, Lightfoot had no problem pausing to recollect a missing word in an introduction. Or to wet his parched pipes with a swig.
Everyone laughed — nervously.
Even, in a brief moment of candour, saying he had emphysema and that he’d quit smoking three years ago. That he had to admit affected his much weaker, but familiar and passable hewned voice.
Singing alone without backup vocals from his tight, long-time four-piece band, the Orillia native did an 85-minute straight set that a couple of times appeared as if he was grasping for which song and on which guitar — six- or 12-sting — to play next as the band watched and waited for him to strum the first few bars before kicking in.
All the songs were abridged versions of what had sold out the rescheduled show — two-minute wonders of mostly ’60s and ’70s classics that still amazingly resonate 50 years later.
Sundown, If You Could Read My Mind, River of Darkness, Cotton Jenny … and Beautiful, which he dedicated to two old Orillia friends Jimmy Woods, 105, and his “younger” wife Marie, 78, who sat in the front section.
“We’ve known him a long time,” Woods, a former barbershop singer, told MuskokaTODAY.com. “Since he was 15.”
Lightfoot also sent out a song to Ingrid, his eldest daughter and one of two who were present.
Fine as Fine Could Be was written for her “a long time ago,” said Lightfoot who dedicated it to her “and all 10-year-olds.”
Another of his tributes, Home from the Forest, was for “Rompin’” Ronnie Hawkins, a “great friend” and talent who died last week at Stoney Lake, near Peterborough.
Lightfoot said “The Hawk” recorded five of his songs, adding: “It was a shame we had to lose him. He had such a great sense of humour.”
In the Early Morning Rain, another huge early Lightfoot hit, which had the crowd on its feet cheering, was one of two songs Elvis Presley recorded. He said that while he never met the magnificent multi-talented musician, a few years ago Mariposa’s answer to Memphis visited Graceland where “accommodating” staff let him into where Presley recorded his song in the “Jungle” room.
Lightfoot closed with his longest song of the night, the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which launched his U.S. career,
And so, the local legend lives on in song and in new voice and is expected to make his annual appearance next month at the Mariposa Folk Festival as it comes out of lockdown, returning to his hometown July 8-10.
EMAIL: news@muskokatoday.com
28 years of ‘Local Online Journalism’
Twitter: @muskokatoday, Facebook: mclairmont1
Leave comments at end of story
SUBSCRIBE for $25 by e-transferring to news@muskokatoday.com
Or go online to https://muskokatoday.com/subscriptions
